Moving Finger Songbag - scroll down!
The Moving Finger Songbag -http://members.lycos.co.uk/mfinger/
Up till now I've kept these songs on another site I have, which is primarily for keeping up-to-date details about folk activities in the corner of the world I live in, but I've stuck in songs as well. However the sound files were starting to eat up the webspace, so I've set up this one as well.
So I'll use this site for putting up the words of new songs, and various ones I've written over the years- and also Real Audio files, so that anyone interested can hear them. Most of the time it's me singing on them , but the point is the songs, not the singing. Most are written by me, and where they aren't I've said so. Those I've written are all my copyright, but anyone is welcome to sing them, so long as they say who wrote them. (If there's any money to be made out of using them, I get my share, that's understood.)
The point of Real Audio, or Real Player (same thing) is that it is "a streaming" system, which means that you don't have to load a song before you start listening to ot. You just have to left-click on "streaming", next to the words of the song. That means if you don't like it you just switch it off, and even if you do like it there's less waiting. The best version of that I find is the RealPlayer 8 Basic free one, and you can get it from here. If you want the more up to date free version, you can get it from this site. It's quite fun, but I found it was a bit overassertive.
The other thing with RealAudio (as I've got it set up anyway) is that, if you wish you can download the song file, by right-clicking on "streaming", and telling it to save somewhere convenient. It is a lot quicker than downloading MP3, takes up less space on your disk, and the sound's not bad, considering.
I've been in the habit of running-off a few little song-books ("chap books", to keep it traditional), any time I've got a few new songs. It's a way of keeping track of them (including a few songs I like to sing which were written by other people), and it's primarily for my own use - it's handier for keeping in a guitar case than a set of loose sheets . So that is the way the songs are organised here, with an overall index of songs - Songlist, and a list of Songbooks as well. The links to RealAudio are next to the words of the songs. (And to confuse matters, there are a few songs where thre is a streaming audio file, but where the written words aren't yet on the site.)
This site is mostly written in a font called Black Chancery - if you haven't got it it'll show up in some other font. However if you would like it - and it's an interesting one to be able to use - this link takes you a page where you can get it, and this one tells you how to install it, and has a vast store of other ancient fonts. It makes me feel like I'm working in Diagon Alley.
Click here to e-mail me Or join the Mudcat - use Personal Messages, and escape the spam. (Other links for Mudcat - here, here ,here ,here - and in emergencies, here).
*Putting songs on the net (Moving Finger website link)
*Putting songs on CDs (Moving Finger website link)
*this site - http://members.lycos.co.uk/mfinger/